Thomas Jefferson - Potato Chip Inventor?

We have written evidence of the Potato Chip or Crisp, or at the very least a very thinly sliced fried potato, but hearsay is almost as reliable as Wikipedia. So we make a quick stop there. Thomas Jefferson may have been a Founding Father and the third president of the United States of America, but perhaps his finest achievement was inventing a foodstuff almost everyone that has lived in his country since, has eaten.Or was it?

The Snack Food Association, no less, claims that it was while serving as Ambassador to France during the 1780s that the great man discovered French Fries. Apparently, he loved nothing more than to serve them to his guests at his house in Monticello, on his return home from France.You can picture him now, swatting away John Adams, “Stop bothering me John, this is a hot pan of fat, and besides, I have promised the first batch to Washington.” It all sounds a bit like the North Korean State News Agency reports that the lair of a unicorn once ridden by an ancestor of new president Kim Jong-Un, had been discovered.

Ah, now we have it - The great man introduced the Potato Chip to his country and called it a French Fry.Well, that clears that up.

Researchers for the ‘Inventor of French Fries’ are welcome to let us know their views, but we’re talking Chips and Crisps here, and this is the story...